Mak: 0:05

I almost can't believe that I'm the first one talking all of a sudden. I think that's probably going to take a bunch of people by surprise.

Valerie: 0:13

I know who is this.

Mak: 0:14

And what is this podcast?

Valerie: 0:17

It's a whole new thing, you guys. We have so much to tell you, and it's been a few months so it feels like we're kicking off 2025. We're kicking off a brand new podcast.

Mak: 0:32

Can we even say kicking off 2025? We're almost three months in.

Valerie: 0:39

Well, since we've had an episode, yeah, that's true.

Mak: 0:43

Well, three months into 2025, I mean.

Valerie: 0:46

Well, hey, it doesn't matter, we're here, we are ready to go. We are so excited. So I'm Valerie McKeon. This is my husband.

Mak: 0:56

Hello.

Valerie: 0:57

Mac McKeon. We have done a few episodes together on what was well, the Dear Creative Soul podcast. Then it was the Peaceful Creative podcast, and I feel like I've been on this journey of finding a place to land that feels like home and reiterating, pivoting, changing things, making my own rules, getting messy, which is so much of what we're going to be talking about now in this podcast, which is really fitting that we are doing this right now. But it was so funny because at the end of 2024, we did those joint podcast episodes together and loved it, really enjoyed it, and you guys did too, because that was what we heard the most.

Mak: 1:51

Yeah, we got a lot of fan mail about that. So we were like you know, maybe there's something to this, and we were going to take a little break through December and then Val was going to come back and do her normal thing. But since that time too, val and I started teaching a program together and we did a boot camp together, and there seems to be some kind of magic here. So we thought that you know what where we're headed with our businesses and what we're doing with our lives we might as well come together and actually make it official that we're going to start hosting a podcast together. So it turns out.

Valerie: 2:37

I like talking to you.

Mak: 2:40

Who would have thought yes, after being together for like 18 years, I would have thought you don't want to see me anymore.

Valerie: 2:46

But you know, what's funny about it is, we're all about finding those points of ease, and that's something that's going to be a theme that you're going to hear with us about your creative journey and finding those points of ease.

Valerie: 3:02

We make things so hard on ourselves and we think that it has to fit into a box, that we have to play by these certain rules and, oh, it has to be done this way or we should like that word, we should do it this way, but we want to bust through all of that. Hence the unbound creative. It is for creatives who are busting down those boxes. So when we, when I was thinking about this, about this idea of ease, it just feels so natural because literally these are the conversations that we just have over dinner. We put the girls to bed and it's like you and I are talking creativity, we're talking business and all of these things, and so it just feels like why don't we just have that conversation instead of the path that it was before, which I completely enjoyed? But there is something just really fun about having the conversations that we're already having.

Mak: 4:09

And I think yeah, I think too because you and I are. I think we work as a couple because we're so dynamic and you and I are so different in so many ways, but also in many ways we're the same. And so we've figured it out and look, we're not coming on here as like, hey, we're this perfect couple who's got everything figured out, because we're not and we fight all the time. We actually like had a mini fight right before we hit record. So you know, that's not us. We're on here to be real with you about all things. Here to be real with you about all things creativity, being an unbound creative, and what does that mean?

Mak: 4:50

And at our core, you know, for the last year, I think, or more, but really more intently over the last year, pretty much since we moved, we've really been focusing on our sort of issues with the way creatives have been treated in the world, in society, in the way they've been thought of for years and years and years, and we somehow became aligned in what you and I each want to do. There is a slight differentiator between what you and I do, but what you've been doing with all of your programs and your coursework and everything you've been teaching visual art wise. I've been building up a coaching business that is focused on creativity and helping creatives unleash a part of themselves that they've tamped down, and mine has been really business focused and it was like we keep having these conversations over over dinner or you know, in the car driving or in the hot tub or whatever, and we're like we're doing the same thing.

Valerie: 5:58

Yeah, like we both arrived individually at. This is what we're really passionate about and what we're passionate about helping other people with and unlocking in them, and it is. We have such a different approach to that, but at the core, what we thought is this getting to, and it really is unlocking and unleashing creatives in the world to do their unique bit of magic in an unbound freeway, with more beauty being put in it, more people who are creatively lit up, not cowering under industry standards or the have-tos or the messaging that we hear culturally about creatives, but people who are just standing in their fullness of their expression. What in the world could people create from that place?

Mak: 7:07

And I want to say I want to put a little caveat there. When you say we want more beauty in the world, I don't want people to think we're just talking about visual artists. We're saying any form of creativity creates beauty. I firmly believe that you can be an accountant and you can bring beauty into the world if you're truly lit up and you're creative about the way you do your job as an accountant and that's like who you are and who you're meant to be and you own it and you love it. You can bring tons of beauty into people's worlds by like being fully you being fully who you are, fully you being fully who you are. And I think that that is is something that that people like this is.

Mak: 7:49

Where the world has kind of gone astray is is a lot of people are square pegs, trying to be pounded into round holes because they've been told that any type of creative thought or creativity within them is frivolous and unworthy and stupid and childish and should be put aside for real, honest work, for something else that matters. Like creativity doesn't mean anything. So go be X, y, z, go do this job, go do that job, but secretly you're in that job you might actually be really good at it. But just because you're really good at something doesn't mean that you love that thing, and so that's where, like these, these angles all come together and creativity together, and creativity is an essence.

Valerie: 8:43

Like you said, I don't even necessarily think that we're looking at creativity as an act. Necessarily, it certainly is. I'm, of course, a visual artist. We're going to speak to that. However, I think creativity as the essence of being, because what does that really mean? What does it mean to be creative at the essence?

Valerie: 9:10

It means bringing forth something that didn't exist before. It means producing, putting something out there, making something from nothing. It involves a spontaneity, it involves risk-taking, putting yourself out there in a way that feels unknown and a little uncontrollable and uncomfortable, because that very act of creating something from nothing comes with the territory of. This is scary, this is unknown, and that is also a big kicker to me about the things that we hear in our culture, about the frivolousness, about the childish nature of it and all of that. Is that the act of creativity? If we're talking about the very essence of creativity, it involves going into the unknown and taking risks. Well, guess what? We have brains as humans that aren't super wired for that. We have our systems that are going to go off and be like no, no, danger, danger, stay the same, stay the same, stay the same. So, in fact, to be a creative in this essence way that we're talking about is to override that system, to be able to create.

Valerie: 10:36

And man, that's hard, that is something that is difficult for anybody, because we have that wiring to keep us safe and to protect us. We want that to be the case because if we didn't have that, we would all walk outside and just walk off a cliff or something. We need that wiring, but we're wired to protect us and to stay the same. So to be a creative is actually to be a rebel. It's to say no, I'm not willing to stay this way. I'm willing to put myself on the line. I'm willing to override this system of fear in order to bring forth something meaningful and beautiful into the world. And it doesn't always turn out, but it is in the act of doing that that we Mac and I both believe that we become. We become who we are made to be when we can operate from that essence.

Mak: 11:40

And I want to underscore here sort of what Val is saying is, when we're talking about you operating out of safety, what we mean is the brain is built to, it does not want to do anything out of the norm. So, whatever routine or pattern that you're in right now, whether you're happy or unhappy, if you begin to deviate from that pattern even slightly, the brain has to like work harder because it's doing something else and its job is to conserve as much energy and burn as few calories as it possibly can. I actually just heard the other day the average brain burns 800 calories a day thinking, and what it's trying to do obviously because it runs your body is it's trying to burn as few calories as possible. So what happens is when you start to deviate from your normal pattern, your brain freaks out and it says stop, don't do this thing. This is scary, it's unknown, we're going to have a lot of problems, we're going to have a lot of problems, we're going to have to figure things out.

Mak: 12:42

And what it does is it retreats into your past and starts saying the last time you tried to deviate, this went wrong and this went wrong and this went wrong and this went wrong because it doesn't have, it can't go and predict the future. It only has the information that has been input into it. So we get stuck in these patterns and when we try to step out of those patterns, to indulge the creative part of ourselves, our brains turn into fight or flight and it starts triggering cortisol and all this stuff and it makes us feel bad about it and your brain actually actively works against you as a creative. Your brain actually actively works against you as a creative and there are ways around this and so on, and we'll dig into all of that kind of stuff. But that's what Val's talking about when she says it actively works against you. So it takes work, it takes courage and it takes knowing that you can do it, that you've got people in your corner.

Mak: 13:43

And what I always like to say is when you feel comfortable, that's when you're most dangerous, because that means you're not growing, that means you're not getting better, that means you're not improving, it means, oh, I'm comfortable, life is comfortable. What you need to do is be willing to step into a place where you are uncomfortable. Discomfort, run towards discomfort, because discomfort means growth. But with each step of discomfort, that discomfort, when you force yourself to do. It eventually becomes comfortable, and then you move on to the next step and the next step. But so many people are afraid to step out because of what society has said, that that act is frivolous.

Valerie: 14:29

Well, and here's the thing, Our brains are wired that way. That's like our biological human wiring, so there's no point in being mad about it. We can just invite it to come along and just be like okay, brain, I see you, you're loving me, you don't want me to jump off a cliff or get eaten by a tiger or whatever. You can't distinguish what's happening here. Okay, I get it. I see you.

Valerie: 14:54

But your soul, that part of you that is maybe you're in a place that it just feels like you're slowly dying inside that place, that maybe feels disconnected, stuck or lost. It's because your soul actually wants this journey, it wants the challenge, it wants to create, it wants to take a risk, to make something, to create something. That is the essence of you, and this is why we are so jazzed about the fact that creativity will open you up to your entire life, why you are made that way. So, yes, we all have brains that are going to chatter at us and tell us a certain thing, and tell us to step back in line or sit back down. Who do you think you are? But the soul of you, the essence of you. And I know you can feel it because when you let yourself go there and you let yourself feel those whispers that say there's more, there's something, there's something here, there's more, and that's the soul part of you, and the soul part of you wants a romance, you want an adventure. You're like let's go. Why do we all cry watching Wicked and Defying Gravity and these movies that have this heroic character? Why does it touch us so deeply at our core? Because we don't want to stay comfortable, we want the ride, we want to see if we can fly, and that is what being an unbound creative is all about. And so this is why, to me, going down that path with the peaceful creative, it felt really good at the time.

Valerie: 16:54

And I think there's so much angst around being a creative for many reasons, many that we've just talked about even now, but to me it's more than getting to that place of like. I feel peace. That's obviously part of it. Who doesn't want to feel peace? Right? But it's actually so much bigger and wider and more expansive and filled with a life that is just going to blow your socks off. That's what I want for you, that's what we want for you A life that feels like I'm getting choked up, just like the biggest version of you where you are not tamped down anymore, you're not letting yourself stay small anymore and you are just on fire and lit up. Lit up like a candle from the inside. And what are you going to do from that place?

Mak: 18:04

That is it. That is the essence of everything, and I understand why you're so choked up, because the idea that that is possible for all of us Like there's people some of you are listening right now and you're saying that's just not, that's not doable for me, and that's why we're here. We're after you, because it is. This has been made available to all of us. Each and every one of us has the ability to do absolutely astounding and amazing things, and when we say that, we don't mean it in oh, you're going to become a celebrity who's super famous and a multi-billionaire, or something like that. But what we're saying is you have the ability to live life every single day, so lit up, so on fire, so feeling great. Whether you are a rock star or a bus driver, I don't care. It's like have you seen that video online on Instagram of that kid who sells popcorn at the movie theater?

Valerie: 19:06

No, I haven't.

Mak: 19:07

And he's like he's this kid, I don't know, he looks like he's in high school or maybe a little bit older, and he you order popcorn from this kid and he, like, he throws the popcorn into the bucket and he twirls the bucket and puts the butter in layers and it's this whole big show and I absolutely love it. That video almost brought me to tears the first time I saw it, because here's a guy and all he's doing is slinging popcorn at a movie theater and he's putting his whole self into that. And now it went on Instagram and it's millions and millions, tens of millions of views of a guy putting popcorn into a bucket. That's really cool, but he's lit up, he's so, he's full of life, he loves what he's doing, he's giving that of himself. So this is what I'm saying to you Not everybody.

Mak: 20:00

You don't have to be a rock star. You don't have to be a rock star. You don't have to be the most famous person in the world. You can walk through every day of your life, just creatively lit up in your life as it is now. And that is what we want for everybody, because when you're there and when you're aligned and you're fully in the flow of that. It's amazing what comes into your life.

Valerie: 20:23

Life gets to be actually magic. And you mentioned flow. I heard an interview with Martha Beck and I'm about to read her new book Beyond Anxiety, which I'm excited about. But she said that we think we want calm to get peace and calm. And, of course, yes, again, who doesn't want to feel that way? She said. But then it becomes the question and then what? Because once we get to that place, once we calm our nervous systems and our natural inclination as human beings is to create and actually we are not the happiest when we are just calm, we are the happiest when we are in flow state. How cool is that? And we are wired to get into flow state, this magical place where it just feels like time stands still and it feels effortless and it feels like somebody is almost like working through you. So it's. I just thought that that was really interesting. And in that place her whole premise of beyond anxiety is, in that place.

Valerie: 21:38

That's the antidote to anxiety which is really cool and we just believe that when you tap into this essence of you, when you become taking the reins of your life and you're gonna make something out of this, you're gonna make something and it doesn't matter what I mean. It could be art, it could be actual art, but making just your life a creative expression, living in a way that is looking for wonder and asking questions and getting curious and problem solving in these new ways, your life will explode. That soul part of you, that inner wiring part of you, is just going to light you up like a Christmas tree. And in doing that, the really cool thing it's abundant, and so you start lighting up other people like a Christmas tree too. When you're lit up like that, it's like passing the candle around on a Christmas Eve.

Mak: 22:47

Abundance begets abundance. This is not a zero sum game. The more joy and happiness that you pour out of yourself into others, they then become joyful, and that just keeps going and going and going. This is science also. This isn't just us talking and saying, oh, this is science Also. This isn't just us talking and saying, oh, this is nice. There's actually science that backs all of this up now, which is a great, one of the great things about being alive right now. And so that's the.

Mak: 23:12

This is just the tip of the iceberg, not even the tip. This is like a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg of what we want to cover in this podcast, and why, after, I think, all of these years of you and I trying to like do something separate, we finally were just like no, we're going to do it together. Because so, if you're new here, val has mentioned the peaceful creative a couple of times, and that's because this podcast was originally called dear creative soul and then this fall, valerie branded it as the peaceful creative did like four episodes or five episodes, and now here we are and we're rebranding it again. But this is one of the things that we want to talk about, as a creative is, you are allowed to iterate.

Mak: 23:56

So often we think, oh, I created this thing, I put my flag in the sand, this is what it has to be forever. And the truth is you know what? Nobody's really paying that close attention. And do you care if we change the name of the podcast and this and that? No, no, you probably don't. And so we're leading the way by showing you don't have like we could. Hey, look, you can do whatever you want, you can do whatever you want.

Valerie: 24:18

You can do whatever you want. You can do whatever you want.

Mak: 24:19

We could change the name of the podcast in two weeks, we bet who knows, who knows. But the point is it doesn't happen, especially at the beginning. When you're at the beginning Now, if you're running American Express or Starbucks or McDonald's, you may not want to iterate and change the name of your company, but when you're just starting that's one of those things that creatives deal with is just getting started we it's like okay, I'm going to make this big change in my life and everything. Okay, and I got to here. We go and you plan, and you plan, and then you make this big announcement and you feel like this is it, I have arrived, this is my new thing. But there's so much, there's so much restraint and pressure and you know it's.

Valerie: 25:07

It's like it's just constricting. It's like being tied down. It's being it's.

Mak: 25:12

It's the bound creative. And we do that to ourselves because we feel like this is my thing and I've made this announcement and everybody's paying attention and it's not true. This announcement and everybody's paying attention and it's not true. You get to try something and if it doesn't quite work out the way you want, you can iterate and try something else, and try something else, and try something else, and if you do that enough times, you're going to find that thing. But you have to go down the paths. You have to start down the paths to see which one has the right feelings. So that's what we're doing. So she mentioned that. She's mentioned the peaceful creative. So if you're new here, that's what that means when she mentions the peaceful creative. This is now the unbound creative and we're both really excited to be here.

Valerie: 25:57

So get ready everybody. This is expansive. This is open hearted conversation, real conversation, the two of us who have been creatives in the trenches actually doing the creative work for our entire adult lives. Really in the trenches guys Like I mean we'll tell more of our story as this goes on, yeah, and that's like a rule of thumb oh, tell your story in the first podcast.

Mak: 26:26

We're not doing that, we'll trickle that out, but I mean we've. We've run businesses with multi-million dollar figures and we've also failed at many different things. And the one common thread with everything that we've done the successes, the failures is it was all rooted in creativity. Val and I met in a creative space and we have been nothing but pursuing creativity at the highest level we possibly can for almost two decades. I can't believe I'm saying that, and that's why we just want to come share with you everything that we found and help you on your journey and help you begin to uncover what it is that you have the capability of doing. And my suspicion is in the back of your mind as we've been talking. There's something back there, there's an inkling back there that you've been thinking about during this podcast, so we want to get to that.

Valerie: 27:26

Yeah, I love that too, because it's been a journey like everyone else. We've lost our way, we've had to come back several times.

Valerie: 27:35

We've had those life moments where it's like what are we doing and all of it. We've really experienced the gamut of it and have firsthand just felt the ups and downs of this way of living and we're just really excited because I think, if there's something about us too, throughout our careers we've broken a lot of rules and just kind of have trailed our own paths, and we want to help you do the same, because it is a big world out there. There is so much potential out there that we do not want to see people getting stuck under these old ways of thinking and old ways of being. It does not have to do that. It doesn't have to be that way.

Mak: 28:23

There are so many rules that have been made up and put in place that everybody have just sort of accepted and that's done, that's over, that's all got to go away. And creativity is anything but frivolous. It should be celebrated and not put down the whole starving artist and oh, I'm going to be a musician, oh, you're going to be poor and living on the streets. Why, why? That's not true. If you buy into that, then you're going to live that out. But there are so many people who have proven all of that wrong and I think that most of that is fear based on facts that were made up for years and years and years. And we'll dive into all of this. But we're anxious and ready to get going and help you as much as we possibly can.

Valerie: 29:16

So thank you for listening to this first episode of the Unbound Creative. We're really excited to be back with you next time. In the meantime, we would love to hear from you If you want to drop us a DM on Instagram. I am at Valerie McKeon on Instagram. Mac is at that, Mac guy.

Mak: 29:38

Mac is M-A-K.

Valerie: 29:40

So feel free to drop us a DM, tell us if you're excited, what you thought, and we will be back with you again really soon.

Mak: 29:48

Thanks guys.

Valerie: 29:49

Bye.